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Wednesday, August 31, 2016

Do you pledge to empower students to use technology safely, responsibly, and effectively? Make it official at www.commonsensemedia.org/educators/pledge.When you do, you will get a back to school guide that will provide young people with the digital literacy and citizenship skills they need to thrive in today's world.

The guide focuses on these five areas:

1. Getting Students Engaged

2. Crafting a Creative Classroom

3. Assessing Students’ Understanding

4. Extending Learning 24/7

5. Bridging the Home-School Connection

The guide can serve as a great resource to share if your school provide teachers with back to school learning opportunities and materials. It also includes useful tips & resources such as the video below which contains three tips to successfully manage a digital classroom.

Check it out and come back here to share what you think of the resource and how you used it where you work.

Tuesday, August 30, 2016

When I was a brand-spanking new teacher I was in awe of veteran teachers who had mastered classroom management. Classroom management is difficult for any teacher, but it can be even more difficult in an inner city school. The school where I started my career in the late 90s was the center of the book Push and/or movie Precious. It was a rough and tough place in Central Harlem, yet there were many teachers who had this classroom managment thing mastered.I spoke to each of them separately to find out their secret. They all had the same answer and it really was a secret. The teachers who were the best at having a classroom with respect and students who were onboard with learning had one thing in common. The first month of school, they locked their doors and covered their windows and they spent time getting to know their students, building relationships, and coming up with ideas about how they wanted their classroom run. They explained trust and relationships must be established before they could dive into the curriculum, so the most respected teachers spent the beginning of the year, focusing on just that. Now that may sound like a good idea, but what does it mean exactly, and how do you do it? They each had their own secrets, but there was nothing tangible they were able to pass along. Until now..."Genius Matters: A Framework for Epic Transformation" is an interactive guide by Angela Maiers that brings teachers and their students on a journey via 20 lessons which you can do daily, biweekly, weekly or whatever works best for your student’s learning environment. Lessons address topics such as how to find your genius, how to connect with others to help you build your genius, how to collaborate effectively, and how to share your genius with the world.And you know what? They have even found it raises test scores if you care about that sort of thing ;)